City of London Group loses third director in one week

Aim-listed investment company City of London Group has announced the departure of Jason Granite, the third director to resign from the board in a week.

Granite had only been appointed an executive director in April, following the resignation of chief executive John Kent, who had been with the company for six years.

His appointment prompted a strategic review of the group and its investments.

The investment company, which focuses on finance for the SME sector, says his resignation is effective immediately.

Last week, the company announced that non-executive directors Andrew Crossley and Andrew Crowe were also resigning with immediate effect.

In March, group finance director Howard Goodbourn resigned to pursue “full-time business interests”. No direct replacement was found for Goodbourn, who was had been employed part-time since September, with existing staff at the company taking over his duties.

A trading statement issued by COLG in May said there was likely to be “significant impairment” to the value of its investment in Trade Finance Partners Limited.

It also said it had “considered carefully” its 85 per cent stake in Credit Asset Management.

GOLG said it had “concluded that it should look at wider strategic options for this business to help it achieve scale, including possibly introducing additional investors or a sale of the business and/or loan books managed and owned by CAML”.

The update prompted a 31.8 per cent hit to the investment company’s share price.